Easter egg

A component of a computer program that is hidden from plain sight and usually is not executed. Typically, an Easter egg can be revealed by entering an otherwise unused sequence of commands. Easter eggs are usually hidden in the code as a prank by programming teams. Finding an Easter egg might reveal additional credits to the programmers, embedded images, hidden levels, and graphical content in computer games. Generally, an Easter egg is an undocumented and therefore untested feature of a program that is embedded without management’s knowledge. Because of their nature, Easter eggs are considered to be security risks in applications.

In 2005, there was considerable controversy over the Easter eggs in the popular computer game “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.” Apparently, users could access sex scenes in the PC version of the game, an outcome that placed in jeopardy the game’s alleged rating of teen appropriateness.